Tag Archives: Acapulco

Total and absolute anarchy, this is the state of affairs in Mexico; the western hemisphere’s version of Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Muslim nations. Maybe it’s that Aztec blood that runs through these people’s bodies that makes them so ruthless. Or maybe, just maybe, I’m making stupid statements. Maybe human beings, all human beings, are just as barbaric as wild beasts (or even more so) given the “right” conditions…

Either way, this is yet another country that people would be wise to stay out of. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

By PORFIRIO IBARRA RAMIREZ – Associated Press | AP

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — Gunmen hung a man from a pedestrian bridge over a busy avenue in the Mexican city of Monterrey Tuesday and shot him to death in front of dozens of motorists.

A police investigator in Nuevo Leon state, where Monterrey is located, said the man was alive when he was hung and died after being shot.

The investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case, said the assailants left a threatening message but he wouldn’t reveal what it said.

Monterrey’s overpasses have seen several gang killings this year, often carried out in daylight in view of drivers on busy streets below. The Gulf and Zetas drug cartels are fighting for control of the city.

Also Tuesday in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, two teenage boys of about 15 years of age were shot to death by unidentified assailants. State police in Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located, said gunmen chased the teenagers down and shot them with about a dozen 9 mm rounds, the type of machine-pistol ammunition favored by drug gangs.

Police also found a man’s dismembered body in a car in another Acapulco neighborhood.

As drug-related violence continued, Mexico’s top police official, Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna, met in Mexico City Tuesday with the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Michele Leonhart, to review the results of bilateral cooperation in the fight against drug cartels.

These people are out of control! One would have to be crazy to travel to Mexico. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

ACAPULCO, Mexico – Police found the bodies of 15 slain men, 14 of them headless, on a street outside a shopping center in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco on Saturday.

The victims, all of whom appeared to be in their 20s, were discovered in an area not frequented by tourists.

Handwritten signs left with the bodies were signed by “El Chapo’s People” — a reference to the Sinaloa cartel, headed by drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman — said Fernando Monreal Leyva, director of investigative police for Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located.

The narco-messages indicated the Sinaloa cartel killed them for trying to intrude on the gang’s turf and extort residents.

Mexico’s drug cartels have increasingly taken to beheading their victims in a grisly show of force, but Saturday’s discovery was the largest single group of decapitation victims found in recent years.

In 2008, a group of 12 decapitated bodies were piled outside the Yucatan state capital of Merida. The same year, 9 headless men were discovered in the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo.

Acapulco has been the site of fierce battles between drug gangs, and this weekend got off to a bloody start with 27 people killed there from Friday evening to early Saturday, Leyva said.

The dead included two police officers cut down on a main bayside avenue in front of tourists and locals; six people who were shot dead and stuffed in a taxi, their hands and feet bound; and four others elsewhere in the city.

“We are coordinating with federal forces and local police to reinforce security in Acapulco and investigating to try to establish the motive and perpetrators of these incidents,” Monreal said.

At least 30,196 people have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against cartels in late 2006.

Also Saturday, authorities said a small-town mayor was found dead in northern Mexico.

Saul Vara Rivera, mayor of the municipality of Zaragoza, was reported missing by family members Wednesday, Coahuila state prosecutors said in a statement. His bullet-ridden body was discovered Friday in neighboring Nuevo Leon state.

There were no immediate arrests.

At least a dozen mayors were killed nationwide last year in acts of intimidation attributed to drug gangs.

I’ve always said that Mexico is a great country. It is extremely rich in natural resources, has beautiful scenery (majestic mountains, great beaches, sun-drenched valleys) etc. By all accounts, Mexico should be one of the most prosperous countries in the western hemisphere, except for one problem, Mexicans. As is always the case it is people who make a country, regardless of what the land may offer. Unfortunately, the Mexican people leave a lot to be desired. TGO

MONTERREY, Mexico – An explosion at a plaza in northeastern Mexico injured 15 people, an attack authorities blamed Sunday on drug cartels targeting the civilian population to cause chaos.

Police believe the attackers threw a grenade Saturday night at the main square in the town of Guadalupe, but were still trying to confirm the type of explosive, said Adrian de la Garza, the director of the investigations agency of Nuevo Leon, where the town is located.

Six children, the youngest 3 years old, were among the injured, said Francisco Gonzalez, the state deputy health director. He said the injuries were not life-threatening, and most of the victims had returned home from the hospital.

It was the fourth such attack in two days in the area around the city of Monterrey, which has been reeling from a turf war between the Gulf and Zetas drug gangs.

On Friday night, three separate grenade attacks happened: near the federal courts, outside a prison and near the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey. A security guard was injured in the attack at the courts.

Nuevo Leon Attorney General Alejandro Garza y Garza said they may be revenge for recent operations against drug traffickers. He did not specify which ones, but 22 suspected drug gang members were killed in a Sept. 15 shootout with soldiers in Ciudad Mier, another town in Nuevo Leon. Last week, marines captured 30 suspected Gulf cartel members in Tamaulipas state, which borders Nuevo Leon.

“We believe this might have been an attack against the civilian population. They are trying to create chaos and anxiety in the population,” Garza y Garza said.

Soldiers arrested eight suspected Zetas members in Guadalupe early Sunday, although the operation appeared unrelated to the attack on the plaza.

The soldiers were patrolling the town when they saw three cars brake suddenly and try to reverse and flee, according to the Defense Department statement. Soldiers arrested eight people and found 8 rifles and ammunition in the cars.

Although drug gangs frequently hurl grenades at police headquarters and government installations, they rarely target crowds of bystanders.

The last such major attack was two years ago, when assailants threw grenades at thousands of revelers during Independence Day celebrations in the western city of Morelia. Eight people were killed.

Still, civilians have been increasingly caught up in Mexico’s bloody drug war, which has claimed more than 28,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon deployed thousands of troops and federal police to fight the cartels in December 2006.

In Acapulco, meanwhile, police continued to search Sunday for 20 men who were kidnapped while traveling together in the Pacific coast resort city.

Authorities were investigating whether the missing men had ties to drug gangs, said Fernando Monreal, director of the investigative police in Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located.

The kidnapping was reported to police Friday by a man who had been among the group but said he was at the store when his companions were abducted. He said the men, ages 17 to 47, were mechanics from Morelia, capital of Calderon’s home state of Michoacan, and saved up each year to vacation together.

Police have since been unable to contact the man, and Monreal said he found his story suspicious.

“They were not tourists. It’s very suspicious that 20 men go on vacation in Acapulco without their families,” he told The Associated Press. “We are not ruling out the possibility that they had ties to organized crime.”

Pictured below are the weapons used by gangs allied with the drug cartels; they are gold plated and studded with diamonds. Now consider this, if these drug cartels are wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in weapons which would ordinarily cost a fraction of this, just imagine the profits they’re making.

Then people wonder why Mexicans are literally dying to leave this toilet bowl of a country; corrupt beyond description by government officials and police for decades. This corruption is what allows drug cartels to take hold and solicit members.

Mexico is one of the richest countries in the western hemisphere in terms of natural resources; unfortunately the people are poor and ignorant. For young people whose idea of a nice meal is fried bananas the money and power offered by these drug cartels is too much to resist. When governments are corrupt, as Mexico’s clearly is, the rest of society will disintegrate. It’s only a matter of time… TGO

MEXICO CITY – Gunmen drove up to a soccer field and shot five men to death as they played early Monday near the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, police in southern Mexico said.

It was unclear why the five men were playing so late, but the region of Guerrero state is often so hot and humid by day by day that athletes wait until night to compete. Many people also work unusual hours in the local tourist industry.

The men were playing in the hamlet of Xaltianguis, on the northern outskirts of Acapulco, when gunmen in three vehicles pulled up beside the field and opened fire.

Two of the dead were identified as local men aged 25 and 34; the other three victims had not been identified because relatives quickly took the bodies away.

Nor was there any immediate information on a possible motive for the attack. However, the area around Acapulco has been plagued in recent months by a bloody turf war between rival factions of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel.

Disabled people, women, children and students have all figured among recent victims of violence in the drug war, which has killed more than 22,700 people since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against cartels in December 2006.

Photos of the weapons show that most of the 31 pistols found in a raid on a home in western Mexico had gold or silver-plated grips or glittered with diamonds — apparently flamboyant examples of the sort of gaudily customized weapons favored by some drug gangsters.

Three of the assault rifles are almost entirely gold-plated.

Identification documents were found at the home on the outskirts of the western city of Guadalajara in the name of Oscar Nava Valencia.

The Attorney General’s Office said he is a leader of the Valencia gang who has worked with Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

And on Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, the Mexican navy announced a big drug haul: It said a Mexican fishing boat and its five-member crew had been captured while transporting nearly 5,300 pounds (2,400 kilograms) of cocaine.

The 78-foot (24-meter) boat was detained on April 27 in international waters, based on information form U.S. officials. Authorities found 105 bales of cocaine in hidden compartments in the boat’s fuel tanks.

The boat presumably picked up the drugs in Colombia.

On Sunday, police said they captured a man believed to be the leader of the Zetas drug gang in the southern state of Chiapas.

Prosecutors in neighboring Tabasco state said suspect Pablo Martinez Rojas was detained near the border with Chiapas, along with four alleged accomplices.

They said the suspects carried out killings and kidnappings for the Zetas, a gang founded by army deserters.

Three assault rifles and pistols were found in the men’s possession.

Drug trafficking is considered a federal crime, but the Tabasco state authorities said the detentions show that state authorities are increasingly playing a role in combating drug gangs.

Tourism is definitely going to be down this year in Mexico… What a hell-hole this country has turned out to be! TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associate Press

Mon Mar 22, 8:56 pm ET

ACAPULCO, Mexico – The pre-dawn discovery of two bodies cut into pieces and shoved into two black bags brought a tragic end Monday to a search for two missing police officers in the southern state of Guerrero.

One of the victims was a regional commander, the other a state police officer. Notes written on yellow cards were attached to the bags, but police refused to disclose what they said. Drug cartel killers frequently attach messages to bodies.

In the nearby resort of Acapulco, police later found another two mutilated bodies and a threatening message outside the house of the city’s former deputy traffic police chief.

The victims were identified as the former deputy chief’s nephews, the Guerrero state Public Safety Department said in a statement. Police also found a message threatening supporters of the Beltran Leyva cartel, it said.

Police officers have been targets, and are sometimes complicit, in drug-related killings, which have claimed 17,900 lives since President Felipe Calderon stepped up the drug war in December 2006.

On Sunday, Rodrigo Medina, governor of the northern state of Nuevo Leon, announced that he was firing 81 state police officers suspected of corruption.

Also in Nuevo Leon on Sunday, the police chief of the city of Santa Catarina narrowly avoided being killed by gunmen believed to be connected to drug traffickers.

The assailants attacked a convoy of vehicles carrying Police Chief Rene Castillo Sanchez and other authorities shortly after the arrest of several suspected drug dealers. One of Sanchez’s bodyguards was killed and three people in the convoy were wounded, said a police spokeswoman who, under department rules, was not authorized to give her name.

The Mexican military set up a checkpoint between Acapulco and the city’s airport Sunday evening after a man was killed in a shootout between gunmen riding in separate vehicles.

The gunbattle followed the deaths of five men who pulled guns on each other during an early morning fight that began as an argument at a wedding Saturday night.

ACAPULCO, Mexico – At least 24 people have been killed in a Mexican Pacific coast state plagued by drug gang violence.

A gunbattle between soldiers and armed men killed 11 people in the small town of Ajuchitlan del Progreso in the deadliest incident Saturday. The investigative police director for Guerrero state says one soldier was among the dead.

Guerrero, state police also say the bodies of two decapitated men were left on a scenic road packed with nightclubs in the resort city of Acapulco.

In a rural community outside Acapulco, gunmen killed five police officers on patrol, and officers found the bullet-ridden bodies of five other men in the same area. Two of those had been beheaded.

ACAPULCO, Mexico – Gunmen ordered a priest and two seminarians out of their vehicle and shot them dead in a drug-plagued region of western Mexico, authorities said Monday.

The three were killed as they drove through the town of Arcelia in Guerrero state to nearby Ciudad Altamirano to organize a spiritual retreat, said the Archbishop of Acapulco, Felipe Aguirre Franco.

Erit Montufar, Guerrero’s director of investigative police, said no arrests have been made and no motive has been determined for the killings, which took place Saturday.

But Roman Catholic clergy in Mexico have complained that they are increasingly the targets of attacks and extortion demands as the nation wrestles with a wave of drug cartel-fueled violence.

“We have become hostages in this violent confrontations between the drug cartels living among us,” Aguirre Franco said.

In April, priests in northern Mexico were urged to take extra precautions after an archbishop commented on where the nation’s most-wanted trafficker may live.

The coastal state of Guerrero, which is used by drug traffickers to grow marijuana and opium poppies, has been mired in drug violence for years.

Also Monday, Mexico’s attorney general’s office said it charged 51 guards and prison officials, including the director, for their complicity in the escape of 53 inmates from a jail in Zacatecas state.

Security camera footage showed that guards at the Cieneguillas prison stood by as an armed gang walked out with the 53 inmates on May 16. About a dozen of the fugitives are drug cartel suspects.

The office also said it has arrested 9 mid-level military officers and turned over to them by the army for passing information to the Sinaloa drug cartel.

President Felipe Calderon has struggled to combat rising drug violence and corruption, sending 45,000 troops to drug hot spots since taking office in December 2006. More than 10,800 people have since died in drug-related incidents.